Rosen Bresaola - Take 2
For some time now, an eye of round has, in the cold darkness of my freezer, been beckoning me to aid in its transformation into bresaola. The last time I tried to guide the fate of a similar piece of meat, the metamorphosis was less than stellar. I sought advice from virtual and human sources, and used the recipe from the Ruhlman/Polcyn book as my starting point. The product was fine, but the drying was slow and uneven, and it just didn't taste that great. So, a year-and-a-half later, I'm trying again.
[Interesting aside: I got berated by one local meat luminary -- Paul Canales at Olivetto -- for taking the advice of another local expert -- Scott Brennan at Cafe Rouge -- to cure/dry the meat in a beef bung cap. This just goes to show that there's no right answer on this stuff, although there are some very strong opinions].
This time I'm using the eye of round again, but using a recipe from Ryan Farr (yet another local meat master that chimed in -- kindly I might add -- on my first attempt 18 months ago). The recipe is from Marissa Guggiana's upcoming book Primal Cuts (see: http://welcomebooks.com/primalcuts/), which Marissa was kind enough to share with me. Rather than spelling the whole recipe out, I'll make a plug for you to buy Marrissa's book (which you can get a very good sense from at: http://welcomebooks.com/primalcuts/lookinside.html).
One interesting difference to note between Ryan's recipe and Polcyn's is that the former calls for using sodium nitrite (pink salt/curing salt #1) while the latter calls for using sodium nitrate (curing salt #2). Given the relatively long cure of the meat (around a month), I'd expect the use of #2, but Ryan's more an expert than I, so I'll have to ask him the next time I see him (if he's not mobbed by greasy, meat worshippers). Or, perhaps he'll just comment on this post and tell us why. Ryan, what's the skinny? Or, perhaps, Mr. Polcyn, you'd like to chime in?
Anyhoo, enough text. Here are a few pictures of the start of the process: trimming the meat, making the dry rub/cure (including winging it on making up my own berbere spice, called for in Ryan's recipe), rubbing half the cure, and bagging it in the fridge for a week (to be flipped daily, then cleaned off, and the other half the cure applied, followed by another week in the fridge, then off to the curing chamber for around a month). More posts later.
